Note taking apps - so many to choose from! Here are just a few of the ones we have found useful. If you have others to recommend, please let me know and I will add them to this list.
Dragon Dictation
Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard.
Penultimate ($1.99) is perhaps the most iOS like of any of the applications. It is brutal in its simplicity which, depending on your view, is either the highest selling point or the biggest drawback. Penultimate has outstanding pen to paper feel, with the ink flowing smoothly across the page. It incorporates very, very good palm protection. Photos can be imported from either the iPad’s photo album or directly from the camera. Paper is limited to 3 styles, although additional styles are available for both free and via in-app purchase.
The main drawbacks to Penultimate are limited export opportunities. Entire notebooks or individual pages can only be exported as PDF files or as native Penultimate files and only through e-mail. Individual pages can be saved into the iPad photo album or printed via iOS capable printers. Overall, Penultimate is a beautiful app, accurately recreating the simplicity and presentation of a pen and paper notebook.
Evernote
Evernote lacks the drawing input ability of Note Taker HD, Penultimate, and Notability, but it's an outstanding app for creating notes and keeping them organized. The Evernote iPad app lets you take text notes, audio recordings, photos, and web clips and arrange them into neatly organized notebooks. Leveraging that power for the cloud, you can sync content across all of Evernote's platforms-like its desktop version, iPhone app, and web portal.
Notes Plus
$7.99Apple's iPad unexpectedly changed the way many people, from students to office workers to the self employed, get work done. Note-taking in particular was revolutionized with the advent of the little tablet with a virtual keyboard for typing, a touchscreen for drawing or writing by hand, and a mic for recording spoken memos. The iPad note-taking app Notes Plus ($7.99) turns all these possibilities into reality, but at a slightly higher cost than the competition. And while Notes Plus does provide all the features you could want in a note-taking app, a few of them could use a little more refinement in terms of usability.
Note Taker HD
$4.99Note Taker HD brings flexible, feature-rich note-taking to the iPad in the form of a $5 app. Packing a wide array of note-taking options, such as variable line thickness, color, typeface, point size, finger-drawing input, plus the ability to import PDFs and insert and crop photos, Note Taker HD is certainly one of the best note-taking apps. But the numerous options may intimidate those accustomed to simpler fare, like our other iPad pen- and finger-input Editors' Choice, Penultimate.
Notability
99 centsNotability is one of the more full-featured note-taking programs for the iPad. It supports text, images, and audio recordings, and contains a sketch pad that lets you not only draw new images, but also mark up images, Web clips, and clip art that you import. For writers, Notability includes dozens of fonts, text point sizes, colors, and a solid number of formatting presets (such as bullet points, indents, and so forth). Notability is a dream to use if you need all these features, although it could be a waste of a buck if you don't.
PaperPort Notes
FreeThe iPad app PaperPort Notes (free) by Nuance Communications extends your ability to take notes by including speech-to-text dictation software. Speak it, and the app will write it! PaperPort Notes' signature feature adds a lot of new possibilities for how you might make use of a simple note-taking app, and if you're already comfortable using dictation software, it's a breeze to use. Other high quality features, like support for Dropbox and Box.net, leave me wondering how PaperPort could possibly be free. Moreover, it doesn't contain a single advertisement. It's not quite picture-perfect, with a few interface idiosyncrasies, but among free note-taking apps, it's one of the best.
Note taking apps - so many to choose from! Here are just a few of the ones we have found useful. If you have others to recommend, please let me know and I will add them to this list.
Dragon Dictation
Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice recognition application powered by Dragon® NaturallySpeaking® that allows you to easily speak and instantly see your text or email messages. In fact, it’s up to five (5) times faster than typing on the keyboard.
Penultimate ($1.99) is perhaps the most iOS like of any of the applications. It is brutal in its simplicity which, depending on your view, is either the highest selling point or the biggest drawback. Penultimate has outstanding pen to paper feel, with the ink flowing smoothly across the page. It incorporates very, very good palm protection. Photos can be imported from either the iPad’s photo album or directly from the camera. Paper is limited to 3 styles, although additional styles are available for both free and via in-app purchase.
The main drawbacks to Penultimate are limited export opportunities. Entire notebooks or individual pages can only be exported as PDF files or as native Penultimate files and only through e-mail. Individual pages can be saved into the iPad photo album or printed via iOS capable printers. Overall, Penultimate is a beautiful app, accurately recreating the simplicity and presentation of a pen and paper notebook.
Evernote
Evernote lacks the drawing input ability of Note Taker HD, Penultimate, and Notability, but it's an outstanding app for creating notes and keeping them organized. The Evernote iPad app lets you take text notes, audio recordings, photos, and web clips and arrange them into neatly organized notebooks. Leveraging that power for the cloud, you can sync content across all of Evernote's platforms-like its desktop version, iPhone app, and web portal.
Notes Plus
$7.99Apple's iPad unexpectedly changed the way many people, from students to office workers to the self employed, get work done. Note-taking in particular was revolutionized with the advent of the little tablet with a virtual keyboard for typing, a touchscreen for drawing or writing by hand, and a mic for recording spoken memos. The iPad note-taking app Notes Plus ($7.99) turns all these possibilities into reality, but at a slightly higher cost than the competition. And while Notes Plus does provide all the features you could want in a note-taking app, a few of them could use a little more refinement in terms of usability.Note Taker HD
$4.99Note Taker HD brings flexible, feature-rich note-taking to the iPad in the form of a $5 app. Packing a wide array of note-taking options, such as variable line thickness, color, typeface, point size, finger-drawing input, plus the ability to import PDFs and insert and crop photos, Note Taker HD is certainly one of the best note-taking apps. But the numerous options may intimidate those accustomed to simpler fare, like our other iPad pen- and finger-input Editors' Choice, Penultimate.Notability
99 centsNotability is one of the more full-featured note-taking programs for the iPad. It supports text, images, and audio recordings, and contains a sketch pad that lets you not only draw new images, but also mark up images, Web clips, and clip art that you import. For writers, Notability includes dozens of fonts, text point sizes, colors, and a solid number of formatting presets (such as bullet points, indents, and so forth). Notability is a dream to use if you need all these features, although it could be a waste of a buck if you don't.PaperPort Notes
FreeThe iPad app PaperPort Notes (free) by Nuance Communications extends your ability to take notes by including speech-to-text dictation software. Speak it, and the app will write it! PaperPort Notes' signature feature adds a lot of new possibilities for how you might make use of a simple note-taking app, and if you're already comfortable using dictation software, it's a breeze to use. Other high quality features, like support for Dropbox and Box.net, leave me wondering how PaperPort could possibly be free. Moreover, it doesn't contain a single advertisement. It's not quite picture-perfect, with a few interface idiosyncrasies, but among free note-taking apps, it's one of the best.